An interesting review. I hadn’t realized that Arlo was a libertarian Republican, and it’s sad to hear that he lost his wife.
I was very into folk music when I was younger, but was always put off by the politics of most of my fellow enthusiasts.
4 thoughts on “Ruining A Woody Guthrie Tribute”
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That Arlo Guthrie is a Republican is also a surprise to me. In 1975 I was in college in Boston and went with a friend to the Bicentennial celebration at Concord, Mass. There was a counter-celebration put on by the “People’s Bicentennial Commission” (I kid you not) and Arlo Guthrie was the featured protest singer at the concert for that event. But I guess many leftist hippies of that era grew up and shifted their politics to the right. Regardless of his politics, I’m very sad for his loss. My hat is off to anyone who stays married for 45 years and is only parted from their spouse by death.
Bill,
you might be surprised to learn there were and still are RIGHT-wing hippies. Here I sit, and I know many others.
I think many people say ‘hippie’, but what they should say is ‘radicals’. Here’s a good rule of thumb, the 1960’s hippies went to Woodstock to hear music, look at hippie art, camp out for 3 days, and maybe work in the flip-out tent and most importantly they went for the tunes and to get high, but not high enough to land in the flip-out tent, it was a fine line sometimes. Think Cheech and Chong.
The 1960’s radicals were way to busy to go to Woodstock. They were busy trying to take over the campuses, take over country and trying to stop the military – industrial complex’s war in S.E. Asia by protesting, rioting and building nail filled bombs. Think Bill Ayers and Abbie Hoffman.
I think Arlo just finally realized that the (D)s are not what they once were. I know several people who are moderate ( R)s who used to be moderate (D)s, but using the old Reagan line, they didn’t leave the (D) Party, the (D) Party left them. These are people who own garages and bakeries and organic farms. They work hard and they don’t believe in hand outs for people who won’t work.
I think that’s true of Arlo too. He’s a working musician who’s been on top, been out of the limelight, and who is back out there as an Old School Classic Folk Singer.
Arlo is a working stiff, and regardless of having his name be Guthrie, he’s had to work hard to get where he is. I think he must have realized that the (D) candidates coming along post McGovern were more top down control freak Socialists, not moderates by any chance. I say that because I kinda went that way too as did many of my old hippie friends.
I think the other thing that always strikes me is that real hippies are much more interested in honoring someone or something at such events as this. They’ll keep their personal feelings out of it. Real hippies would pull Obama from a burning car, regardless of their feelings for him politically.
Real radicals would keep the EMT’s from pulling Romney OUT of a burning car.
Actually, Arlo is a Ron Paul fan. Not that there’s anything wrong with that…
I’ll make an interesting point. When Woody reached young adulthood, the big problem facing our country was the Depression — brought on by oppressive corporatists in no small part. Being left wing — think democratic socialist — was standing up for the ordinary person having a decent life doing decent work in a decent community.
By the 1960s, the biggest oppressor facing people like Arlo and me was the government with the Vietnam War. Add into that the beginnings of the drug war and you get a definite push for libertarianism.
When I was on the left in the late 1960s in California, I commented to a few people how I respected and liked Barry Goldwater much more than some Stalinist types we all knew on the left. A few people influenced my thinking by noting that my politics had multiple dimensions. Yes, I was on the left side of left-right — but moderately. I was also strongly proliberty on the liberty – totalitarian dimension. I was just as strongly prodemocratic on the democratic-authoritarian dimension. In some ways I am the same today. Working with democratic socialists is one thing I can do much better than some conservatives. It’s a little hard to pin me down — much harder than today’s ideologues.
All this is one set of reasons why I read your blog, Rand, and occasionally comment.